Education

Goals

Through a series of joint professional development workshops
for teachers and arts, fun and cultural activities for students,

This
initiative aims to;

1) Provide teachers with necessary skills to engage
students of both faiths and encourage inter-faith socializing and learning OR
build on teachers’ skills to encourage further development in these areas;

2)
Provide students of all faiths with opportunities to co-mingle through various
community service and cultural activities;

3) Bring together public figures for
dialogue around sectarian and community issues;

4) Expand on the PDF model
so that it can be applicable to other schools and areas of Egypt.

Objectives

1. Short term: Build capacity of teachers to encourage
neighborliness and coexistence of all citizens regardless of faith

2. Short term: Break down systematic intolerance taught to
Egyptian children through relationships formed as a result of engagement in
cultural and community activities

3. Long term: Reduced tensions between Christian &
Muslim communities

Activities

Involvement of Religious Leaders:

The priests and imams will be involved in a conversation
around how to incorporate interfaith methods and ideas of coexistence in their
parishes. Ideas from these meetings will be used in the project activities. A
project facilitator will be with the religious leaders at these monthly
meetings. The meetings will run from month 2- 10.

There will be an opportunity for all other religious leaders
to congregate together for a two-day meeting to discuss challenges and
solutions to issues they face within their communities and parishes.

Community & Women
Involvement:

There will be one open town-hall in each area where community
leaders, interested facilitator applicants, and schools can attend to learn
more about the program, its focus, its goals, and how to be involved.

Teacher Training / Professional Development (Month 2):

A. A
specialized, professional-development training for the participating teachers

will be created by project staff, in cooperation with the
religious leaders and 2-4 previously participants.

Teachers will participate in one professional development
workshop per month for the rest of the program.

Activities for students (Month 3-11):

B. Cultural Activities for student participants &
Expositions

Participants will be introduced to the cultural heritage
that is shared by all Egyptians regardless of religion. At the end of every
workshop participants will make joint presentations of their work to the rest
of the group. Each month of the program will have a different theme, with
workshops taking place during that month. Workshops will be held at community
spaces, Ministry of Culture shared workspaces (we have received pre-approval
for this), local NGOs, schools, the Tahrir Lounge – Nile Delta, and other areas
as applicable.

Throughout the duration of the program, students will have
the opportunity to display their work or perform in public expositions in
community spaces. There will be four public expositions in each area, for a
total of eight public expositions throughout the duration of the program.

Since the project is working in three different areas, there
is also the opportunity for the students from the Nile Delta region to exchange
letters or emails with students in Upper Egypt.

Possible themes and workshops include, but are not limited
to:

Ancient Egyptian arts, crafts, and culture: Participants
will explore ancient Egyptian culture and heritage through arts, crafts, and
culture. There will be a total of 9 workshops in each area (one per month, for
a combined total of 27 workshops). Activities may include (but are not limited
to):